January 18, 2006

• Why's he got 999 on his hand?
• Does he call the ambulance afterwards? I suppose that's what any responsible Christian hitman would do.
• Also note that he obviously writes with his left hand, but fires a gun right-handed. Oh my God, it's me!!
• Nevermind that, can I sue him if he doesn't kill his mark before god takes him away?
• Skrik pops the commies for G-d! 0 0 0 = 1 = 0 0 0 And you thought it was going to be a bar code!
• televangelist Ernest Angley's novels Raptured and its sequel Rapture 2:Apocalyptic Boogaloo being the best examples
• My favorite rupture movie is The Meaning of Life. Love that Mr. Creosote.
• I tried making my own end times movie about Amillennialism but everyone thought it was too boring. It was about this family that raised three kids, went to church every Sunday and tried their best to serve God in everything they did. Christ didn't return during their lifetime nor those of their children, but they went to heaven knowing that they had served God the best the could and that he would come back eventually. Kirk Cameron turned it down for lack of massive heathen death, fire from the sky, mass plague and persecution.
• I wish I had never clicked that link. That sort of window into the human psyche I don't need.
• The Rapture starring Mimi Rogers was hot shit when I was in high school, but IIRC it was actually kinda anti-religious, despite the literal coming-true of Apocalyptic vision. Plus, Mimi got naked, and yea verily was she a hottie. Been years since I saw it though. However, I think the Bible-as-horror-movie is a genre whose time has come. See Mel Gibson's slasher/Jesus movie, not to mention this little gem.
• Are we gonna sing that Blondie song now?
• She is yet a hottie! But in danger of being eclipsed in the eye of the leering public by the quite fetching Rita Wilson.
• That reminds me, I heard some reviewer call The Passion of The Christ The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre. That, my friends, is brilliant.
• I think that was David Edelstein. And yes, I too roffled.
• I now see I totally missed out in my childhood! I need to find a copy of these. No luck on my torrent search yet, but there are others.
• The Amazon customer reviews on The Thief in The Night are worth a read.
• Cool article. I remember seeing these movies when I was quite young. The cobra scene, the razor, and the guillotine were all burned into my brain.
• the part where the man from Mars eats the guitars is quite disturbing.
• More disturbing than the part where he shoots you dead, then he eats your head?
• Last I heard he was eating bars. Mars Bars, this time.
• Oh my lord. I saw the first two Mark IV films (And really, wouldn't it be hilarious if that company was named Mark DCLXVI?) when I went to a Southern Baptist private school in the eighth grade. They were shown in lieu of classes during "Revival Week", followed by an altar call where the entire student body (hundreds of them) went down to the front of the auditorium to kneel and cry, leaving myself and two other unrepentant heathens sitting all alone and feeling very conspicuous. It was surreal. And it made the rest of that semester before I could get the hell out of Dodge very uncomfortable. I remember the razor buzzing in the sink, the snake, and the guillotine (with the B horror movie skewed camera angle that the article doesn't mention) vividly, along with the vaguely obscene looking wand that they used to brand people's hands with the mark.
• Hey, I went to a Baptist private school for a few years, and I didn't get any of these movies! I feel cheated. (I did get to leave the school after tearfully telling my parents I had nightmares about my heathen relatives being burned forever in the flames of hell, though.) I still can't believe I made it through my childhood without seeing a single one of these.
• I've not seen these. However, I am am aficionado of the more modern rapture based movies. While I've not seen the actual "Left Behind" movie starring the one and only Kirt Cameron, but I AM the proud owner of the movies "from the makers of Left Behind: the Movie" which are basiclaly the same as Left Behind, only different. The first one in the series (which they made before the Left Behind movie) is "Apocalypse" in which the rapture happens and half the people in the world disappears and only one person in the entire world doesn't fall under Satan's spell. The best part is that when the rapture actually happens God takes people to Heaven, but leaves their clothes behind. Not only that, God leaves their clothes behind in a nicely folded pile. Who knew that God was so tidy? All these piles of folded clothes around is pricesless. It also claims to have been shot on six continents. I'm sure that is true. However, there is no way that they were the ones that shot the material from the other continents. Lots of stock footage of large crowds from around the world. Of course the highlight of the series is the fourth film, "Judgement" in which God is put on trial. It stars Corbin Bernsen as the lawyer who is working for Satan. Oh, and it also stars another actor you might have heard of... Mr.T!!! That's right. He pitties the fool who doesn't accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior! I think I love these films simply because they portray "non-beleivers" as total morons. In Apocalypse, for example, half the world disappears, a world leader comes and bans the Bible and even says that he is God. In Apocalypse, in order to do anything you have to have a brand on your hand. And not just any brand, but one that actually says "666" on it! Of course, not being Christians, no one "left behind" in the entire planet thinks this is at all suspicious except for the curageous people who have converted to Christianity! Call my naive, but I think that if that stuff happened, even the biggest atheist would think that this was eerilly like the book of Revelations...
• Peripherally related: In Mike Davis's excellent book The Ecology of Fear, there's a chapter titled "The Literary Destruction of Los Angeles," which examines various literary and entertainment works in which LA is destroyed and explores the public's fascination with those works. Worth reading, especially for Los Angelenos.
• The post apocalypse is romantic
• A religious tract one told me: "If you find yourself on Earth after the Rapture, don't panic. You were going to Hell anyway." So I stopped worrying.
• My Infernal Masters assure me that, post-Rapture, they've pre-arranged for all of us to get good, decent paying jobs with advancement possibilities and free Starbucks in the coffee room.
• One of the movies discussed, If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, is available for purchase at 5 Minutes to Live. If money were no object, I would buy that site's entire stock.